Duke University is a privateresearch university located in Durham, North Carolina. The school was originally founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day town of Trinity in 1838, then moved to Durham in 1892.Tobacco and electric power industrialist James Buchanan Duke changed the name to Duke University, in order to honor his deceased father, Washington Duke, in 1924.

The university's campus encompasses over 8,600 acres, located on three campuses in Durham as well as a marine lab in Beaufort. Duke's main campus incorporates Gothic architecture with the 210-foot Duke Chapel in the center of the campus' highest point of elevation. Duke is one of the wealthiest private university in America with $11.4 billion in cash and investments in 2014.Duke spent $993 million in research expenditures in the 2013, ranking eighth in the nation. The University is ranked among the top universities in the country.In 2014, Thomson Reuters named 32 Duke professors to its list of Highly Cited Researchers, making it fourth globally in terms of primary affiliations. Duke's basketball team has won five NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championships, the most recent in 2015

Erica Desai received both her degree in public health, and went to graduate school for her Master's at the University of North Carolina. After graduating in 2014, she began working at Duke University Medical Center. She also stays busy outside of the workplace, enjoying a variety of hobbies such as singing and dancing, painting and cooking, running and playing volleyball and spending time with her family and friends. She also likes to travel whenever possible and stay active in her Indian culture.